Fair Food Philly: Fall 2016

community partner

Fair Food is a non-profit organization whose goal is to support small farms and the local food movement in the region. They do this by partnering with local farmers and acting as a liaison between them and potential buyers, to include farmer’s markets, restaurants, and chefs. Their services are entirely free of charge; thus they are completely funded by donations. They rely heavily on quality promotional materials to attract the right donors to be successful.

Challenge

Our task as a team was to create two major promotional videos to be used as a part of Fair Food’s capital campaign. These videos were to document two farmers that Fair Food has partnered with. Each one would share the farmer’s personal story and explains how Fair Food has helped them and their farm’s business. In addition to the major promotional videos, we planned to create a shortened, 15 second “teaser” version of each video that can be shared across different social media platforms. We believed that if we could create an emotional connection between the donors and the farmers, that donations would increase substantially.

Strategic Thinking

We approached the creation of our media in a way that would tell a story, and create a connection between the viewers and the farmers. We went about the video collection in a way that would allow us to have a large amount of content to choose from. For our interviews, we made sure to not simply have a list of questions for our subject, but to have a lengthy conversation with them, and lead them to addressing the topics that we wanted to include in our videos. For our B-roll footage of the farms and the still images, our goal was to capture as many compelling images as possible, it was definitely a matter of quantity as well as quality. To make a pieces of media that were truly moving, we looked to many sources for inspiration, specifically Vaynerchuk’s “The Characteristics of Great Content and Compelling Stories” and Aaker and Smith’s “Four Design Principles of Engagement."

Result

Team Fair Food on their visit to film at Stryker Farm.

The results of our efforts are something that we, as a group, very proud of. Our first video features Nolan Thevenet, a pig and goat farmer in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. In the video, Nolan explains the humane practices that he uses in his farming, and how Fair Food has helped him and his business grow. The second video features Sue Miller, a dairy farmer and cheese maker from Chester Springs, Pennsylvania. In this video, Sue explains Fair Food’s role in her business, especially highlighting their understanding of farmers’ tough schedules, and their flexibility in working with them to make their business thrive. Each feature video has a 15 second version that coincides with it, and very effectively communicates the underlying message of the feature length version.